Oakland artist Eric Bohr presents Ritual, a new body of works on canvas. These paintings explore the power and lasting implications of a sustained daily practice of conscious movement and focused attention. The artist uses various materials and multiple layers of paint and we see the poignant results of the methodical removal, adjustment and excavation of those layers across time. These works are-and symbolize-what comes of ritual. Prayer, meditation, perseverance, singing rounds, and dance are some of the subjects under consideration here as well as the use of ritual to mark life's transitions.

In his new series of still-lifes Glendessary, Peter Honig launches a wry exploration of the syntax of photographic vision, rooted in a shadowy border territory between the sacred and the banal. The brooding black-and-white 16"x 20" studies of assembled found objects exploit the hierarchies of an extended baroque tonal scale, as a means of engaging with the classic theme of mortality and the poetics of loss. The assorted cast of characters that populate the model universe of Honig's Glendessary are culled from machine shop cast-offs and road-side debris. Emerging dramatically from a sea of deep black, the minimalist compositions seem to aspire to a certain grandeur, while simultaneously flaunting their eternal object-dom, steadfastly refusing to fully participate in the exercise of illusionistic modelling.

The works in Glendessary are available as framed archival giclée prints printed on textured watercolor stock. The edition is limited to seven.

A long-time Berkeley resident, Peter is now living in the foothills of Santa Barbara, a stone's throw from acclaimed Californian poet Robert Cameron Roger's Glendessary Manor. This is his fifth solo show at Mercury Twenty.

Two artists share with us topics that have haunted them for many years, both working in minimal palettes of pencil, charcoal, and marker.

Jody Medich's series of pencil and charcoal drawings come from a long-held, very intrapersonal place where reality and media images merge. Of her family she says, "We come from an area right on the border between Austria and Hungary...and survived two world wars in limbo between two evils: the Nazis and the Communists. As a young child, [my family] wanted me to know how to survive in the face of hell. They tried to save me by telling me stories."

Grandmother, aunts, uncles, and parents told of traumatic experiences: taking beatings to protect Jews and Christians hidden in the cellar; where to hide when soldiers came to the door, and to never peek out, no matter what; and showing scars from concentration camps and the Gulag for resisting ideology of the oppressor. Telling these stories to a child, the adults left out details, but the artist's active imagination filled in the terrifying blanks, envisioning the stories through the imagery of old war and Noir movies her father liked, which she describes as "...disturbing, and sinister, made all the more terrifying because of what they do not show."

Jody Medich was born in South Bend, IN, grew up in Detroit, MI, and has lived in the Bay Area since 2001. She received an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2008. Medich has exhibited throughout the Bay Area, is a member of the art group Five Ton Crane, and the co-founder and creative director of the design firm Kicker Studio.

Oakland is portrayed as a city in constant flux in much of Jill McLennan's art throughout her career. This show includes drawings of construction sites depicting our constant need to improve on our surroundings while overlooking the environmental impact. McLennan creates a visual record of the urban environment in constant transition, both socially and politically. The works become a historic document of a place that is being destroyed and recreated by redevelopment.

McLennan has been working as an artist and an educator in the Bay Area for 12 years. In 2012, she launched a small business, JMAC (Jill McLennan Arts and Community), bringing art into our cities through community murals and educating the youth through private and small group art lessons. She strives to incorporate creativity and awareness into all aspects of daily life through painting and teaching.